Enrollment Outcomes Are More Than the Product of Demographics, Market Forces and Political Challenges

John W. Dysart
President
The Dysart Group

There is no question that these are difficult times for colleges and universities. Market realities have made even maintaining enrollment challenging and growth in the current marketplace is even harder.

• Demographics are having a profound influence on enrollment as the customer base continues to decline.
• More families are losing confidence in the value of higher education.
• As costs rise, financial aid from state and federal governments has been stagnant and, in some cases, has declined.
• The political landscape presents distinct obstacles for many institutions.

The environment is problematic, but not determinant. Despite the challenges, many colleges and universities have been able to maintain enrollment levels while others have even been able to grow. It’s important to be aware of market obstacles, but equally important to continue to implement old approaches to enrollment management while blaming disappointing outcomes on outside influences. These obstacles can be overcome with data-informed decision-making and a willingness to examine and change internal strategies and tactics to produce better results.

• Is your inquiry pool large enough? You may need to increase your customer base to grow new student enrollments.
• Is your inquiry pool too large? You may be wasting precious time and resources
  communicating with inquiries unlikely to apply for admission or enroll. Look for the inquiry sources least likely to generate applications and enrollments and stop investing in those sources.
• Is your application pool large enough to support your new student enrollment goals? Consider new outreach to inquiries to encourage admission applications.
• Are more than 30% of your applicants for admission never accepted or denied admission? This is a good sign that effective communication with admission applications is lacking.
• Do less than 15% of your admission applicants eventually enroll? Again, a low conversion rate may be a sign that more steps need to be taken to educate applicants for admission on the value of your product. Building relationships with your applicants for admission using the telephone, personalized text messages, emails and even AI is critical.
• Are you doing enough to encourage your admission applicants to visit the campus? Even a 10% increase in visit rates for applicants is likely to translate into more deposits.
• Have you effectively encouraged at least 60% of your applicants for admission to apply for financial aid? It is extremely difficult to maintain or grow new student enrollments without demonstrating the affordability of the institution.
• Review the timing of your financial aid packages. Ensure that all new and returning students who have applied for financial aid receive award letters within 48 hours of receipt of the ISIR. There is never a good reason to begin financial aid awarding later than the end of the first week of October.

These are hard times for college and university leaders and enrollment managers. It seems some institutions have just given up on making necessary internal adjustments to the strategic enrollment management plans and have fallen victim to outside influences and obstacles. My experience indicates that innovative tactics and new initiatives can allow for maintaining current enrollment levels and often, growing.